VideoNuze Posts

This morning, FX and Comcast announced FX+, an ad-free subscription video on demand service available to Xfinity TV subscribers for $5.99 per month. FX+ is quite comprehensive, including full current seasons of 17 different FX shows (e.g. “The Americans,” “Atlanta,” “Taboo,” etc.) along with library seasons of 16 current and prior shows (e.g. “The Shield,” “The League,” “Nip/Tuck,” etc.). In all, there will be over 1,100 episodes of FX programming available to subscribers.

FX+ follows the recent announcement of AMC Premiere by AMC and Comcast, which is another ad-free SVOD service, available for $4.99 per month. However, AMC Premiere doesn’t include AMC’s deep library of popular programs, highlighted by “The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men,” while also including some original digital content. AMC Premiere’s shallow content selection suggests its success will be modest.

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I’m pleased to present the 382nd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

It’s been a little while since Colin and I last discussed CBS All Access, which now has approximately 1.5 million subscribers. But with the launch of “Star Trek: Discovery” coming on September 24th (first episode on-air, then exclusively on All Access), the timing is good to dig into its place in the market and the role of originals.

Interestingly, Colin and I have differing views on almost everything related to CBS All Access; he sees their progress to date as modest (whereas I’m more impressed), but he thinks Star Trek alone could boost subscribers all the way to the 4 million point, which is the 2020 goal (whereas I’m much more cautious), and he sees All Access as threatening to CBS’s local affiliates (whereas I think they’ve largely been brought under the tent).

Most of all, Colin believes Star Trek is a relatively risky move by the company, while I see it as taking a page from a playbook well-established by Netflix and others who have used originals to methodically build their businesses.

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When Discovery announced that it was acquiring Scripps Networks Interactive earlier this week for $14.6 billion, a lot of the coverage naturally focused on how the combined companies will have more leverage in their pay-TV carriage negotiations and also how significant cost-savings and synergies will result.

While all of that is true, the inescapable reality is that because pay-TV subscriptions as a whole are shrinking, Discovery’s best case scenario is that it can get a larger piece of a smaller pie. A far more interesting angle, to me at least, is how the company can accelerate its online and social video initiatives. A prime place to start would be by looking at the success that Scripps’ Food Network is having in 2017, as it as slightly surpassed BuzzFeed’s well-publicized Tasty, in the hotly competitive social video food space.

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FreeWheel has released a new report titled “The Power of OTT: Audiences and Engagement,” which highlights data on OTT devices’ (which I’ve typically called connected TVs) soaring popularity, but also acknowledges ongoing challenges. The report is part of new semi-annual research series from FreeWheel called Signature Insights, which incorporates research from its own Video Monetization Report (VMR), as well as 3rd party sources such as Nielsen, eMarketer, Hulu and Millward Brown.

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You would have to have had your head buried in the sand these past few months not to notice that Amazon has become the “it” company everybody can’t stop talking about. Whether buying Whole Foods, innovating its Echo smart speakers, challenging Blue Apron in meal kits, introducing its own Geek Squad to compete with Best Buy or countless other initiatives, all of a sudden Amazon seems to be omnipresent. And with an estimated 80 million Prime members, Amazon is in fact now literally present in many people’s day-to-day lives.  

Amazon has what it calls “pillars” (Prime, e-commerce, cloud, etc.), and it’s becoming clearer by the quarter that video is fast becoming another one. In video, the company’s efforts are wide-ranging - devices (Fire TV), original content (which is included in Prime and on which it is spending billions), licensed content (also in Prime), live sports (with its NFL Thursday night deal), SVOD distribution (via its Amazon Channels program for 3rd party and original services), digital video premieres (with its Amazon Video Direct program), international (expanding its own SVOD service to 200+ countries) and technology enablement (with AWS and acquisitions like Elemental). In sum, Amazon is already operating in virtually every part of the video value chain.

Despite all of this, I believe that Amazon’s video efforts are still completely under-appreciated. With a number of industry trends coming into view, Amazon’s video momentum could significantly increase and carry it straight into the heart of the pay-TV industry.

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I’m pleased to present the 381st edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia.

This week we discuss both Comcast’s and AT&T’s Q2 ’17 video subscriber results, which were dramatically different, and what we see as the implications.

First, Comcast, lost 34K residential video subs in Q2 ’17, as compared with losing just 4K in Q2 ’16.  Colin and I differ in our interpretation, with him more concerned that Comcast’s streak with X1 has likely run its course. I’m more sanguine because as I look more broadly, over the past 4 quarters, Comcast has managed to turn in exceptional performance in the face of massive cord-cutting headwinds.

By contrast, AT&T’s core video businesses - Uverse and DirecTV - have been hemorrhaging subscribers over the past year, and Q2 highlights how deeply discounted and bundled DirecTV Now is the only bright spot in video for AT&T.  But as I explain, the company’s willingness to all but give away its skinny bundle to preserve its wireless business has potentially profound long-term consequences for the entire pay-TV industry, with Amazon increasingly well-positioned to be a big winner.

Listen in to learn more!
 
Click here to listen to the podcast (25 minutes, 27 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts.

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!